Yesterday, several Congressional reps from NY & NJ demanded access to the Elizabeth Detention Center. I toured the facility a couple years ago w/students as part of @humanities_lab. Since there's such secrecy around this place, I wanted to share what we saw. 1/? @ykristyn
Background: EDC opened in mid-90s by a private company who didn’t train guards & abused detainees, mostly African asylum seekers. The detainees won a lawsuit. 2/?
EDC was taken over by Corrections Corp of America, now CoreCivic, a private company, which means that access to the facility and its records is limited. ICE subcontracts the facility out to basically a private prison company. This is bad. medium.com/latterly/findi… 3/?
Anyway, our visit. No phones or cameras, only pen & paper. Just beyond the metal detectors, there was a poster about workplace stress and suicide. We met the warden who was hostile. He told us that the facility was in excellent shape, offering exercise, healthcare, etc. 4/?
He told us it was different from the all-woman detention center he ran b/c the men in EDC never asked about their children. All of these statements were lies. 5/?
The facility is literally a former warehouse in an industrial park of other warehouses. It’s invisible from the street but close to Newark airport, which is key for bringing detainees in and out. google.com/maps/place/Eli… 6/?
The health clinic personnel contradicted the warden about detainees’ access to health care. We walked past the dorms, drab rooms with rows of beds, visible bathrooms, and cement tables. Detainees spend 24 hours/day in this facility. Think about that. 7/?
The library was a small room w/a computer. Detainees get legal representation, but it’s arcane. They are often moved without notifying lawyers. Calling home is expensive. Meals can be supplemented from the commissary, where there are huge markups on items like ramen noodles. 8/?
To pass the time, some detainees actually make art from the scraps around them, like bed sheets, kool aid as dye, and food packaging. It's a way to counter the dehumanization of the place. statesofincarceration.org/states/new-jer… @ykristyn @NaomiExtra 9/?
We were told the gym was so good we’d be jealous. Reader, not true. There were a few detainees in one room. Since we couldn’t interact w/them, we assumed they were planted there. The gym room we accessed was in terrible condition. The machines were old and falling apart. 10/?
The outside recreation area was-I kid you not—an interior room. An old warehouse, remember, so the ceilings are 25 feet high. There was a skylight. This was all the sunlight and outdoor time they got. This was Orwellian doublespeak: inside is outside. Detention is freedom. 11/?
We were led to a room where we waited to meet with detainees. They stalled (just like they did with the congressional reps) but finally we met with several men, again, mostly African, mostly asylum seekers. 12/?
With the language barriers it was difficult, but mostly they asked for our help to see their children again. Another lie by the warden. They told us that it was a soul-killing place. None of them knew how long they would be there or if they would be deported. 13/?
It was heartbreaking. We walked in knowing it would be bad, but it was so much worse. These men had done nothing more than come to the US looking for asylum and we put them in a warehouse w/no sunlight and little outside contact for 24 hours/day. This was before Trump, btw. 14/?
Remember this: Family separation is cruel & inhumane, but we can’t just stop that and think we’ve fixed the detention system. We haven’t. Don’t forget the 34,000+ people held in detention every day. Support orgs like @afsc_org & firstfriendsnjny.org who work at EDC daily. FIN
